TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1965)

Hugh O'Brian and Shirley Eaton

TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1965). Director: George Pollock. 

Ten people, including two servants, are given invitations to work or play at an isolated estate located high atop a mountain and accessible only by cable car. They discover the strange nursery rhyme about "ten little Indians" in each of their rooms The mysterious voice (Christopher Lee) of their unseen host declares that they have each gotten away with killing someone, and now it is time to pay the piper. The first to go is singer Mike Raven (Fabian), who ran over two people and barely got a slap on the wrist -- he dies by arsenic -- and then more murders occur, somehow each corresponding to the method of death mentioned in the rhyme. Will anyone be left alive? 

Leon Genn and most of the group

George Pollock had previously directed four Agatha Christie "Miss Marple" adaptations, and he does a good job adapting her "And Then There Were None/Ten Little Indians" to the screen. While I might have preferred a little more tension, this is not quite as "cutesy" -- for lack of a better word -- as the forties film And Then There Were None. Hugh O'Brian pretty much smirks his way through the movie, as if he were above it all (which he isn't), but his performance is adequate, although the other cast members are more on target. Stanley Holloway, Shirley Eaton, Dennis Price, Leo Genn, and Mario Adorf (as the houseman) deliver adept performances, while Fabian gets an "A" for effort and Wilfrid Hyde White seems to think he's back in that forties adaptation and can best be described as annoyingly impish. Surprisingly Daliah Lavi has a very good turn as the high-maintenance actress Ilona Bergen, and comes through in her scene when she admits all about her past. As the cook and housekeeper Marianne Hoppe is, perhaps, a bit too hysterical. 

Dennis Price and Wilfrid Hyde White

This version transplants the story from an island to a mountaintop and two of the murders center on falls from great heights, one in a cable car whose cable snaps, and the other while a character attempts a climb down the mountain to get help; these are well-handled, and the film has genuine suspense. O'Brian and Eaton are given a love scene that seems a bit out of place. Malcolm Lockyer's jazzy score does little for the picture, but the lensing is sharp thanks to cinematographer Ernest Stewart. This was George Pollock's last theatrical feature. 

Verdict: Very entertaining Christie picture with some fine performances. ***, 

FEDORA

Fedora (Marthe Keller) accepts her Oscar

FEDORA (1978). Director: Billy Wilder.

"Moral turptitude. You can have six husbands but you can't have one illegitimate child. Now you can have no husbands and six children and nobody cares."

Years ago Barry Detweiler (William Holden) once had a fling with the famous actress, Fedora (Marthe Keller). Now she's a recluse in Corfu, living on an island with an old countess (Hildegard Knef) and her doctor (Jose Ferrer of The Shrike). Detweiler, who is now a rather desperate producer, tries to use this slender, long-ago connection to the woman to coax her into coming out of retirement, especially as she looks many years younger. But Fedora's associates seem determined to keep her out of the limelight ... Fedora was pilloried by many critics when it came out primarily because it wasn't Wilder's earlier "Hollywood" picture, Sunset Boulevard, which has many similarities to Fedora (Holden stars in both movies and in each gets involved with an aging actress who is no longer in the business.) Taken on its own terms, however, Fedora is a fascinating picture, not quite a Gothic horror story, that examines image vs reality, irresponsible and tragic behavior, and in the end unravels a decidedly bizarre deception. Marthe Keller was criticized for her work in the film, but she actually gives an excellent performance, far outstripping the others, especially Holden, who seems completely listless. Mario Adorf makes an impression as the Corfu hotel manager. Miss Balfour (Frances Sternhagen of Outland), Fedora's companion,  is almost comically evil and the picture is a trifle overlong. Still, it is a worthwhile companion piece to Sunset Boulevard with its twisted and tragic story. Based on the novella from Thomas Tryon's "Crowned Heads."

Verdict: Weird old Hollywood story generally well-told. ***.